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Welcome to the Guild section. First and foremost, this section is meant to act as place for people to form competitive Pokemon teams. In these teams, you are free to talk about in game stuff, the competitive scene as well as organise friendly wars with rival guilds. This section is a very important part of the whole competitive forum so treat it with respect.

Below are the rules of the guild rules, read them carefully before making a guild / joining one.

***OFFICIAL GUILD RULES***

In summary:

Follow All Serebii Rules.

You are only allowed to create/participate in 1 GUILD ONLY.

Make your post presentable.

Don't bother mods to approve your threads.

STAY ON TOPIC.

No guild is allowed to enter into an alliance with another guild.

Guilds can only be in one war at a time.

Guild members can only post in guild threads they're actually a part of.

Follow all SPPf rules. These rules applies to the sub-forums on the site, and the guild section is no different.

2. You are only allowed to create/participate in 1 GUILD ONLY.

It makes no sense to be a part of two / several guilds at once. To lessen any conflict that could arise (such as deciding war teams / what guild to fight for) members are only allowed to be a part of one guild and one guild only.

3. Make your post presentable.

Threads that are presentable have a higher chance of attracting members as well as getting approved. Threads with a lack of effort put into them (no banners, no user bars, just one liners) will not be approved. Look are existing guilds for examples.

4. Don't bother mods to approve your threads.

All threads in this section must be approved by a Competitive Forum Staff Member. Do not PM or bother staff members to get your thread approved or ask about the status of an unapproved thread. We will get to it in time.

5. STAY ON TOPIC.

Can't stress this enough STAY ON TOPIC. Flaming, spamming, trolling, random messages, etc are not allowed. What is meant by staying on topic is only discussing the current metagames, giving advice to your fellow guild members or talking about guild related things such as inner tournaments, services, or any other issues. Guilds should only be talking about gaming and/or guild issues, and they're not little social clubs where you are free to spam endlessly. Failure to obey this rule MULTIPLE TIMES BY MULTIPLE MEMBERS will result in offending guilds being locked for week, if it happens again after you're guild is unlocked, the guild will be locked indefinitely. Individual members that break this rule will be dealt with individually, and will not affect the guild in any way.

Tournament discussion / hosting cannot happen in guild threads. Instead you need to make a general tournament thread in this sub-forum for your guild. This thread will be used to host all of your guild tournaments and any discussions relating to the tournament will happen in that thread. You can however announce / advertise that there is a new tournament being held your tournament thread in the guild thread but that's as far as it goes when it comes to discussing the tournament in general guild threads.

6. No guild is allowed to enter into an alliance with another guild.

Coinciding with the rule about not posting in guilds you're not a part of and only accepting official members, guilds are not allowed to enter an alliance with other guilds. This rule is there to prevent people from unintentionally breaking any of the mentioned rules.

7. Guilds can only be in one war at a time.

Guilds are not allowed to enter wars with multiple guilds at once. All it leads to is sloppiness and all that other stuff nobody likes dealing with. Fight each war one at a time. Additional Guild War rules can be found here.

8. Guild members can only post in guild threads they're actually a part of.

Guild members can only post in guild threads they're actually a part of. War Challenges etc will all be done via PM or VM. People not a part of the guild they are posting in can post there only IF THEY INTEND TO JOIN, no exception to this rule will be given (that includes wishing a new guild good luck, leave it to PMs). By posting another guild with the intention to join it, if you're already a part of an active guild, then you're not a part of that guild any more and as such should stop posting there. If you post in your current guild that you're leaving, then after that post you are forbidden from posting in that guild again unless you intend on rejoining.

9. Do not guild hop / post in multiple guilds at once.

This is an extension of rule 8 because some people just don't get it. When you post in another guild with the intention of joining, you are forbidden from posting in another guild till you're accepted or denied entry. What this means is that you are not allowed to apply to multiple guilds at once. Also, once accepted into another guild, you are not allowed to join another one after a significant amount of time has passed (3 weeks minimum). If you're caught breaking these rules you will be infracted of course, so don't do it.

10. Guilds are only to accept official members.

Guilds are only to accept official members. On-Call Members and Honorary Members are not allowed.

11. Guilds are responsible for the actions of all their members.

Guilds are responsible for the actions of all their members. Guild leaders will have to keep their 'troops' in check. This has the exception of say 'spiteful leaving or being forced to leave members' which will be judged on a case to case basis. On top of that, any guild feuds / disputes that spread out to other user's profiles will be dealt with harshly.

12. Do not post your guilds / xats around the forum.

Per the Serebii.net rules on Advertising, you can not post or send unsolicited PM's/VM's regarding your individual Guild Chats and websites around the forums (which means posting them in threads unrelated to the guild sections or posting them on the profiles of members not a part of the guild trying to get them to join). This also includes including them in your front posts. You can however leave a link in your signature leading to them. It's advisable that you keep what happens on your chat out of your guild threads to avoid potential arguments as well however though the chances of you being infracted for that depends on the discussion (which is still usbjected to standard Serebii.net rules).

13. If a guild or its leader(s) are inactive for one week it will be closed.

Inactive guilds clutter the forum. So if a guild is inactive for a minimum of one week it will be closed. A leader can request for it to be reopened. Likewise, the user who posts the OP of a Guild should be active in their own thread as they control the Guild and are the only ones who can make changes to the OP as needed. If the OP is inactive, there is no point to having a thread as a chat-room could serve the same purpose. The main point of having a Guild thread is:

1) To establish the Guild initially.
2) To keep organization and order, and without an active OP #2 cannot be fulfilled.

Therefore, an OP of a Guild should be posting in their Guild once per week, to establish that they are active on both Serebii and in the Guild as well. If a leader fails to do so (or if they are not online for a week without explanation beforehand), the Guild will be closed, though may be reopened upon request of the leader or a co-leader.

All guild wars and battles are conducted under Serebii's Standard Rule set. Be familiar with these rules before engaging in a battle.

15. Moderate your chat-rooms.

Chatrooms are user created, so guild leaders and moderators should be well equipped to guest or ban anyone that is on their chat causing trouble. That being said, what happens xat chats are not the moderator's problem, so any disputes that happen on these chats should stay on that chat and be handled by the guild leaders or moderators there. To reduce any disputes, I recommend you ONLY ALLOW OFFICIAL GUILD MEMBERS AND FORUM MODERATORS ON YOUR CHATS. In addition to this, keep any issues that happen on the chat out of guild threads and user profiles.

16. Post ownership won't be given all the time / frequently.

With regards to guild leaders giving ownership of their guild's first post, this will only be granted BY ME to a guild if the change is a permanent one (this means guild ownership will not be granted if someone is going to be away for more a week or longer). In addition to this, guild post ownership changes for one particular post won't be granted frequently if requested within a short time span (of say a week unless a good reason is given for why you're requesting a change in ownership a week after it was granted on that post). Different post ownership requests in one go will be granted however.

Once you make a post ownership request, the intended new owner of that post MUST make what is called a "transfer post" so I can use that post to transfer as a means of transferring ownership to the new user. The date and placement of the post will remain the same, just I need a post I can merge so I can control who is the owner. The message in general doesn't matter unless it's offensive.

17. "Member Poaching" is strictly forbidden.

Trying to take other guilds members is strictly forbidden. Anyone reported / caught trying to steal members from other guilds will have their guilds locked and will be infracted. Repeated attempts at member poaching will result in your guild being locked and you being forbidden from creating and managing any guilds. If someone has contacted you trying to get you to join your guild via PM, then use the report button and we will deal with it.

18. Acknowledge the Signature rules on the forums.

As mentioned above, the guild section is not and will never be exempt from the universal forum rules. As such, any user breaking the signature rules will have any offending parts removed and will receive a strike. Breaking this rule multiple times can result in your entire signature being disabled and you being banned. For additional information, please view the Signature Rules thread. Also, to find out if your signature is safe, use the signature check thread.

Conclusion

Failure to comply with these rules will earn you a "Disobeying the Rules of a specific sub-forum infraction". If you have any questions, feel free to PM them to any of the Battle Forum staff, and if you see any rules being broken or have any issues, report them as mods won't always be able to be at every place at once due to our schedules. Alternatively, you can PM any problems to us. Enjoy!

Last edited by Archangel; 28th July 2015 at 6:54 AM.
Reason: Extention to Rule #12.

13. If a guild or its leader(s) are inactive for one week it will be closed.

Inactive guilds clutter the forum. So if a guild is inactive for a minimum of one week it will be closed. A leader can request for it to be reopened. Likewise, the user who posts the OP of a Guild should be active in their own thread as they control the Guild and are the only ones who can make changes to the OP as needed. If the OP is inactive, there is no point to having a thread as a chat-room could serve the same purpose. The main point of having a Guild thread is:

1) To establish the Guild initially.
2) To keep organization and order, and without an active OP #2 cannot be fulfilled.

Therefore, an OP of a Guild should be posting in their Guild once per week, to establish that they are active on both Serebii and in the Guild as well. If a leader fails to do so (or if they are not online for a week without explanation beforehand), the Guild will be closed, though may be reopened upon request of the leader or a co-leader.

This rule is gone for now as it's only adding to the inactivity problem and not encouraging activity.